Trying to resist the temptation to do a Zukofsky job in translating the start of Catullus 114 into Polari ... IYKYK #ThisWritingLife
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The benefit of taking a break - I was struggling to find a reference in the Coverdale Bible (for a paper on the reception of Ovid) before I took a rest and my first morning back at work today, I was able to find it. #ThisWritingLife
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Cheating on Ovid (the ultimate cheat!) by working on three other papers instead of the one on him Iโm supposed to be writing. Poetic justice! #ThisWritingLife
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I'm revisiting a draft paper (on Catullus' queer translation) that has had me tearing my hair out - I've never had such trouble putting an argument together, even with papers where I abandoned a false start and had to start again. And ... I now think it reads ok! #ThisWritingLife
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11 Dec 2025
Rewarded myself for finishing my proofs (a bit daunting when the bookโs on the famously pedantic Housman & full of Latin & Greek that just begs the typesetter to mess it up) & submitting a poem by a jaunt up the lovely Penshaw Monument. #NorthEast #ThisWritingLife
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11 Dec 2025
Excited to be working on the proofs of my forthcoming book on #Housman - due out in July 2026. #Classics #ThisWritingLife
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3 Dec 2025
I really could have done without the proofs for my book on #Housman arriving in these last few days of a busy term - but I guess that means it will be out in the world sooner rather than later. #ThisWritingLife
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20 Nov 2025
Dealing with copy editor's queries for my Housman book. So, naturally, I am considering burning all my notes and binning my laptop, leaving the country, & starting a new life as anything but a writer. Truly the worst bit of writing any book, every time. #ThisWritingLife
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So this is what it feels like to be cancelled ๐คทโโ๏ธ๐คฏ๐คช
#indieauthor #thiswritinglife #blocked brittlewindowzblog.wordpressโฆ
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27 Jun 2025
Iโm just leaving the worst stage of research (finding out others have been there before/ itโs a crowded field ๐ข) & by the end of this week I think I have a viable new topic & have laid out my structure. Exhausted. #ThisWritingLife
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6 Jun 2025
A lot of more important things are happening, but today more of my #PolariCatullus poems got accepted & will feature in Shearsman magazine @ShearsmanBooks. #ThisWritingLife
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3 Jun 2025
Not a bad day at all - sent a chapter off to an edited volume, versioned a poem of Catullus that I hadn't been able to see my way to writing, reading for a new project. #ThisWritingLife
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15 May 2025
Yesterday, I really really hated what I had written and was contemplating tearing up my paper and starting again. Today, I've gone back to it, and realised, with relief, that I definitely have a paper here! #ThisWritingLife
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13 May 2025
Butterflies (not pictured) & blue skies down by the river today. Makes up for a not terribly productive work day #ThisWritingLife
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13 May 2025
One of those work days where I have been working all day, and don't seem to have progressed much at all ... #ThisWritingLife
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19 Mar 2025
No, brain, donโt start seeing creative possibilities to tweak your writing at 5 p.m.! #ThisWritingLife
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5 Mar 2025
I keep thinking that I really haven't achieved anything this week. Then I remember that I have come up with a title for my book, & am making plans to write the next one (or the one after that), and that these things take time. #ThisWritingLife
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12 Feb 2025
One of the best feelings in the world: when someone tells you that they are writing something because of something that you yourself wrote. #ThisWritingLife
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30 Jan 2025
Very pleased to have just written a note to self in the paper I'm drafting: "what are you going to do with the fuck of translation?" #ThisWritingLife
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